The tone of the controversy over a private prison company accused of human rights abuses winning the name rights to a football stadium in Florida is changing.

The home stadium of the Florida Atlantic University Owls football team (seen here playing Louisville) may soon be named after a private prison company. Critics are already calling the stadium "Owlcatraz."

From sheer outrage to satiric humour, the tone of protest has swung wildly on the campus of Florida Atlantic University since the naming rights to the football stadium there burst into public debate.

The controversy erupted last month when the university, based in Boca Raton, signed a deal with GEO Group Inc., a private for-profit prison company.

In return for a $6 million over the next 12 years, the football stadium will be renamed GEO Group Stadium.

Since news broke a few weeks ago, protest movements have sprung up on campus and elsewhere around the United States.

One of the groups on campus has adopted a Twitter handle of “StopOwlcatraz,” which is a merger of the names Alcatraz — the notorious prison in San Francisco Bay — and the burrowing owl, the team mascot.

Gonzalo Vizcardo, a student who is leading the on-campus protest, told the Star on Wednesday that the anger has quieted down only because students are off this week.

However, meetings are still going on to see if the university will back down on the agreement.

The students have argued that they don’t believe the school should be associated with a prison group, especially one alleged to have a questionable human rights record.

An example is the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi, in which the Department of Justice began an investigation in 2010.

After an investigation, the DOJ catalogued a variety of abuses which occurred when the GEO Group operated that facility.

Its contract with that facility ended last year.

The company did not respond to requests for comment, but it has contended in earlier statements that the abuses mostly occurred before the company took over the juvenile prison.

GEO Group’s chairman and chief executive officer, George Zoley, is an alumnus of the university and the prison group is a local company in Boca Raton.

In a news release on Feb. 19 to mark the announcement of the deal, Zoley noted that through the group’s charitable foundation about $1 million is donated annually to support local charities and schools and to fund college scholarships for students.

Last Friday, about 50 students occupied the office of the school president Mary Jane Saunders, demanding a hearing.

Vizcardo said it was during this sit-in that the president agreed to hold an open forum on Monday.

At the forum, however, she wouldn’t back down from the decision.

Vizcardo said the mood of the room was one of “outrage” and only a couple of people in the room of 200 spoke out in defence of the deal.

Another opponent of the deal is Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, which is a social justice group opposing the private prison system.

Libal told the Star that he believes there will be “continued opposition” to the prison agreement and he thinks it’s “very possible” that the university could ultimately reverse the decision.

“If they put the name on the stadium, this will be a reminder that whenever something terrible happens in the prison, it will reflect terribly on Florida Atlantic. It will be an ongoing impact.”

The university did not return messages left by the Star.

In an earlier statement, the university said this is the biggest one-time gift in the history of the FAU athletics, and will go toward supporting stadium operations, the stadium and scholarships.

Although the Florida Atlantic student population is off this week, Vizcardo said his protest is not sitting idle.

This week, he said, student protesters will hold meetings with board trustees and donors to the school, Vizcardo said.

“A lot of them (donors) are not happy,” he said. “We still have a lot of work to do, but I’m optimistic we can win. We won’t stop until we stop Owlcatraz.”

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